Transport on Mars is much easier than on moon.
On Mars, there is Water and CO2, all the ingredients needed to make life. And sunlight and building material, needed to make industry. You can make roads on Mars similar to railway on Earth.
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The researchers fired laser beams at lunar soil to create interlocking pavers that could be used to construct paved roads and landing pads.
The hardened molten regolith is tough enough to withstand the weight of rovers and other spacecraft with minimal dust kickup, and it could all be made right there on the Moon.
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On Earth, rock, glass, and other materials in soil are constantly exposed to weathering forces such as wind, rain, and flowing water, which is why grains of sand are often smooth around the edges.
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Any spacecraft that lands on or traverses the Moon is at risk from the dust it kicks up because unweathered shards of rock and glass can easily scratch sensitive instruments and wear away at surfaces.
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During this process, the research team found that any crisscrossing or overlap of laser beams could lead to internal cracking, especially since lunar regolith is full of glass and other silicates.
The laser that proved most effective ended up having a 45 mm (about 1.8 inches) beam that could move over dust in a specific pattern that produced triangular shapes.
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If they can work this out it would be neat if they could do this either from a satellite or with a Rover so the surfaces could be prepared before missions
But why?
I can’t really think of any scenario where this would be needed or practical.
Edit: other than for fortifying landing pads as mentioned in the article.
Eh? The whole article refers to lunar dust being the bane of existence there. The slabs would no longer be kicking up dust into sensitive delicate stuff.
What sensitive delicate stuff needs to be lugged around on roads on the moon a lot?
Everything would benefit not being exposed to moon dust, especially humans.
The moon dust is extremely sticky, abrasive, chemically reactive and terrible for the health.
And it’s not like we can just hose down the rover or the spacesuit to remove the dust. I think dealing with the moon dust can be one of the major hurdle of setting up a moonbase.
Can only guess.
But if colonisation. Or even long term occupation for research. Is to happen. Then there will be need to house and maintain landers and launch veicles of some form.
Such will mean a need to move from launch pad to an enviroment where technician’s can repair test and maintain in shelter.
Yes launchpads I can see, and short stretches of fortified paths to and from those, but I find it highly unlikely that there will ever be the need to construct roads for overland travel on the moon.
Agreed. Only time I can see it being needed. Is if we end up with multiple nation colonies. Trade between them may be a reason.
But its far from clear.
But landing pads alone. Seems like a valid reason to consider the tech.
It may also lead to the production of movable regalth sheets. (Assuming structural integrity can be resolved. ) Used to build shelters.
I can see a future possible. Where people lay rebar like grids in the dust. Cover it. Satalite uses sunlight to power lasers to melt the dust. And that generates a sheet of ceramic material used for all lorts of production.
But why would we want to colonize the Moon?
Setting up a colony would be fantastically expensive, living there would be tough, the low gravity might cause health issues similar to what microgravity or weightlessness cause, and the colony would be completely reliant for resupplies from Earth which would also be very expensive.
Colonizing it “just 'cause” doesn’t seem like it’d make sense. Habitats for research might, but it’d be on a much smaller scale so it’s unclear whether roads would be needed.
Edit: I’m not saying research like this is useless though. Might be useful one day, might not be, that’s the nature of things and increasing the sum total of human knowledge is never useless
Mainly as a push of point tonother places.
As much as I hate some billionairs attitude to earth.
It is true that even without human greed. Our planet is a single point of failiure for the human race. At some point we need to populate other enviroments.
The moon is not the best place to live. But it is the best place to expand from. Outside earths gravity. We have options to make 1g enviroments using spin. We also have more energy from the sun.
Today we have technical limitations on radiation sheilding and growing in space. But again its all stuff that can be resolved.
We also have far more non organic resources in space. That do not damage a an ecosystem as we mine them.
So if human kind wants to expand we will need to move from this planet eventually.
